Minimum wage: a disaster for the young, the poor, and especially poor blacks"

Cold Fury links to an article in Town Hall by Thomas Sowell. Sowell writes the following, which I quote, "there is no excuse for not being aware of what a major social disaster the minimum wage law has been for the young, the poor and especially for young and poor blacks."

"We have gotten so used to seeing unemployment rates of 30 or 40 percent for black teenage males that it might come as a shock to many people to learn that the unemployment rate for sixteen- and seventeen-year-old black males was just under 10 percent back in 1948. Moreover, it was slightly lower than the unemployment rate for white males of the same age."

"This was not the first or the last time that liberals did something that made them feel good about themselves, while leaving havoc in their wake, especially among the poor whom they were supposedly helping.
For those for whom "racism" is the explanation of all racial differences, let me assure them, from personal experience, that there was not less racism in the 1940s."

"For those who want to check out the statistics -- and I hope that would include Mitt Romney -- they can be found detailed on pages 42 to 45 of "Race and Economics" by Walter Williams."

Read more here:  http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/02/07/a_defining_moment/page/full/

Update:  The graph above was found at http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2012/01/the-ultimate-end-of-social-democratic-labor-policy.html